The Many Career Paths of Zero Kiryu
by Blind-Eyes-That-See
Summary: What would you do if you were granted any wish in the world by a magical talking river whale? Like many before him, Zero is faced with this question. This is what Aristotle was worried about, you guys.
1. In Which There's a Freakin' River Whale

Hey. First story in awhile.

You'll find that this is best contextualized around the chapters before Kaname showed back up.

* * *

If anyone had asked him about it, he would have denied, denied, denied. He had a reputation to uphold. He was a frickin' awesome hunter who shot stuff, n'stuff. If anyone pictured him as having any kind of leisure activity, it was probably something cool like snow-boarding, or sword fighting, or punching fires. No one in the world would have suspected that he, Zero Kiryuu, spent his free evenings fishing.

Well, no one except Yuuki. Yuuki probably suspected, considering she was sitting right next him.

The river was long and winding, like something else that was also long and winding. Zero was making every effort he could to keep pretending that he was angry with Yuuki for the whole being a vampire thing. It wasn't easy. Somehow he felt he wasn't doing a very good job of it.

"Hey, Zero, thanks for inviting me out here. I know we've had our differences, but I hope we can get past that. By the way, what time is it?" she asked.

"I'm still in love with you."

"What was that?"

"Seven thirty. That's what I said."

"Oh. Ok."

Oh yeah. Smooth.

A half an hour later, Yuki was reeling in yet another catch. Giggling, she tossed the trout into the cooler. "That makes nine Zero-kun. You haven't even caught one."

"Hn."

"You know, it's your bait that's the problem."

"You're getting small frys Yuuki. My bait will catch me the big one."

"Zero, your bait is Aidou."

Off in the distance, a blond headed figure jumped up from the water, breathing heavily, scrambling around frantically. There was a rope tied across his face.

"I fail to see your point."

"Zero, this is a river. There isn't anything bigger than trout in here. What are you hoping to catch?"

"River whale."

"There's no such thing as river whales."

"That's what Napoleon thought, and I think we both know where that led."

"What?"

"I had to sleep a lot in history class."

"Just let him off Zero."

"Fine. Whatever."

But before he could, something totally awesome happened.

The waters parted, and a huge mound of flesh jumped into the air, and then fell mouth first into a screaming Aidou.

"What the fuck was that thing?" screamed Yuuki.

"Oh, probably nothing. Like you said, river whales don't exist."

"Zero—"

"No no, I don't know anything."

"Just reel it in."

But that was easier said than done. The world had not seen such an epic clash of wills since the Tuesday before, when Zero had fought his own mirror.

After three hours of fighting, Zero finally managed to pull the whale to shore. He had been dragged down three miles, and he'd broken more than one arm, but he did it.

Yuuki put her hands to her hips as she admired his catch. "This is not physically possible."

The whale spoke. "REALITY IS OFTEN NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE."

"That's not true at all."

"I think you're missing the big picture Yuuki. This fucking whale just spoke. And he's Scottish."

He was Scottish by the way. I probably should have mentioned that before.

"WHALES OFTEN SPEAK," said the whale.

"Gonna have to disagree with you there, whale," said Zero.

"OH, OKAY, IT'S NOT LIKE I'D HAVE ANY PARTICULAR EXPERTISE ON THE SUBJECT. OH WAIT, I'M A WHALE, SO I WOULD. YOUR CASE IS LOOKING PRETTY WEAK RIGHT NOW."

Zero poked its side while it thinking. Squishy. "Why are you speaking in caps?"

"I'M A TALKING WHALE. DO NOT QUESTION THESE THINGS."

"Ah well. It's not like it will matter much, considering I'm going to eat you."

"REALLY? THAT WOULD BE SUPER UNCOOL MAN."

"Don't care."

"WELL ALRIGHT. BUT I GUESS YOU'RE JUST NOT GOING TO GET YOUR WISH?"

Zero turned to Yuuki. They raised their eyebrows together. "Wish?"

"YES, WISH. IF YOU SPARE ME, I'LL GRANT YOU YOUR DEEPEST DESIRE. IT'S A PRETTY SWEET DEAL ON BOTH ACCOUNTS IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF."

Zero scratched at his chin. "Any desire I want?"

Yuuki visibly tensed. Oh, sure, the whale was probably full of nonsense, but she knew what Zero's wish would be. He would wish all the purebloods dead. Not even their newly rekindling friendship could stop him.

Zero was staring at the ground. "Alright whale. If you really are magical, try this wish on for size."

"Zero," interrupted Yuuki.

"My wish…," said Zero.

"Zero."

"Is…," he continued.

"Zero!"

"Is to be a train conductor!"

And then everything exploded.

* * *

A reasonable ending.

More to come.


	2. In Which Zero Becomes a Rogue Cop

OMG you guys, how has the half hour since I updated last been?

* * *

Yuuki spent a lot of time thinking after that. At first she thought about how little she knew about her silvery hunter friend. His greatest wish had been to be a conductor. Go figure.

After she'd grappled with that concept for awhile, she started thinking about why she had been brought along. All she did was spend her day watching Zero as he piloted his train through the great grasslands of America. Apparently the passengers were not in the least bit afraid that their conductor spoke only Japanese and carried and gun with him everywhere he went. Yuuki, who was always good with languages, was able to chat with them long enough to find out that their destination was Chicago.

When she complained to Zero that she had nothing to do, he handed her a book of railroad history. Not having anything else to do, she leafed through it.

Most of it was boring. Yuuki found herself yawning through almost all of the chapters, until she came upon a particular passage that outraged her too much to bore her.

Years before the buffalo had roamed free through the American grasslands. However, using railroads, men had shot down the majestic beasts until they were all but extinct.

Well, Yuuki wasn't about to let that go! She was going to bring back the buffalo. After all, she was a pureblood, she could do freaky stuff like that, right?

So she used her pureblood magic to create a portal through which two buffalo crawled. She named them Jimmy Bob and Mary Ann, since she was pretty sure that was what all Americans were named, and she shooed them off into the wild.

Later that day she came up to Zero. She was smiling. Zero, who had been so transfixed by the glory of conducting a train that he hadn't noticed her in days, turned, a little bit shocked. "Yuuki. Why do you look so happy?"

"I've just done something good."

"Oh?"

"You know about how settlers came in and slaughtered all the buffalo?"

"With good reason."

"Yeah—wait, what?"

"The hunter's council was the organization the led the extermination of the buffalo."

"What? Why?"

"Because, Yuuki, buffalo are good for two things. Making more buffalo, and drinking human blood."

"You don't mean—"

"Yes. All buffalo…are vampires. Yuuki, why do you look so pale?"

The buffalo were like a great mass of cows stretching out in every direction without deadly intent, except instead of cows they were buffalo, and instead of being without deadly intent, they had it.

Naturally, Zero wasted no time in arming the passengers.

"Take this gun," he said to a brave looking man. "Make sure to fire at the females first. And avoid the fireballs if you can. This is going to be long, deadly fight, but I promise you we'll make it through this."

The man watched Zero for a moment, and then blinked. "Dude. I don't speak Japanese."

After some more awkwardness he managed to get weapons into the hands of everyone on board.

The battle the ensued was totally awesome. You know the battle in World of Warcraft where the combined forces of the Alliance and the Horde join to storm the Wrath Gate, but then the Lich King is all like, No! and he hits Saurfang and then everything goes poisonous and then the dragons fly in and they're like pew pew, magical fire breath, pew pew, and the dragon queen Alexastrasza is standing next to her mate Korialstrasz and everything ends and then you go fight demons? No? Well it doesn't matter cause this battle was like six times more awesome than that.

By the time it was over, Zero had even broken a sweat. He wiped it away, and a man approached him. "That was quite impressive young man," he said in fluent Japanese.

It turned out that the man was the head of the police department in Chicago, which, for the purpose of this story, is composed entirely of Japanese people. He offered Zero a job.

Zero took it.

And that was how Zero became a rogue cop.

* * *

What could happen next? Updates coming eventually.


	3. The Graduate School of Hard Knocks

Author's Note: Hi.

* * *

Being a rogue cop, Zero didn't have much time for romance. He did, however, need a hilariously straight laced partner, and that's where Yuuki came in this time.

"Zero, I'm not wearing this."

"Well I'm not wearing it."

"Well why does one of us have to have an afro?"

"Because that's how these things work."

"Aren't you the rebel? What does it matter how things work?"

"Good point." Zero shot the afro out of Yuuki's hand.

"That was completely unnecessary."

"I love you."

"What?"

"We've got a mission partner. Turns out a gangster has been selling counterfeit manga. We've got to go stop him."

"Um. Okay."

The search for the gangster was long and arduous. Finally, it led them to a seedy building in the good part of town called "Tim's Books." Zero looked over the merchandise with disgust.

"My God. These bastards think they can get away with anything. Look at these manga Yuuki. They don't even have any pictures in them. They're just words. What kind of idiots do they take us for?"

"Zero, I don't really get this. You're not stupid. Why are you acting like it?"

"The best rebels rebel against logic."

"I…see."

So, long story short, Zero beat up the owner of the bookstore. Don't worry though, he probably deserved it. Why? Umm…we'll say he was sexist.

So anyway, they decided Zero needed to see a therapist. But when they got to the therapist, he had been shot to death. He was also sexist.

There was a line of clients out in need of help though. They needed him.

Graduate school be damned.

* * *

Zero the therapist coming up next.


	4. A Different Sort of Candidate

Sup.

* * *

So now Zero was a therapist. Yuuki, who might have been a little put off by her friend's tendency towards random jobs shifts, but she had to admit, he was rather good at this one.

"I don't think my parents love me," said a sixteen year old.

After Yuuki translated for him, Zero nodded. "Well, I can't say I can sympathize. I knew my parents loved me. At least I did before they were murdered. In front of me. My brother helped, and the woman that did it turned me into the thing I despised most in the entire world. I spent the next ten years of my life miserable, certain that I would become an inhuman monster. I asked the woman I trusted most to kill me at one point, but she wouldn't do it. Later I found out she was the very kind of monster that slaughtered my family. Did I mention my family was slaughtered? But no, you have some real problems."

The boy listened, eyes wide, and then left. People tended to forget about their complaints when Zero talked.

At one point, Yuuki laughed. "Well, Zero, you've saved thirteen lives now."

"Thank you nurse Yuuki. It has been a pleasure."

They were to save many more than day. Zero cured a compulsive liar with a punch to the face. Then he cured three manic depressives with three manic punches to the face. Some drug addicts soon learned that he had his own addiction…for punching them in the face.

But one man's face came in and left unpunched.

"Yagari-sensei," said Zero, his brow rising.

"Zero. I need your help."

"Anything sensei."

"I'm running for president."

"Of the association?"

"Of the United States."

"What? Don't you need to have been born here for that?"

"I wear a cowboy hat. Where do you think I was born?"

"What prompted this?"

Yagari shrugged. "That comes later Zero. But now I have to ask you—will you be my vice president?"

"I—I would be honored, sensei."

"Don't. This is going to be a lot of work. Things are bad Zero. The opposing party has chosen a vampire candidate."

Yuuki harrumphed. Yagari looked at her as if he hadn't noticed her until just then. "It's not just that he's a vampire Yuuki. You see…he's a buffalo vampire."

There was something in his eyes. It looked almost like fear.

* * *

Vote or Die, motherfucker.

~Martin Luther King Junior

Review if you so wish.


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